Putin trial run of a new managerial elite

16.08.2016

The departure of Sergei Ivanov from the post of head of the Kremlin administration has become the last straw that broke the dam in the liberal Kremlevskaya our eyes change the basic concept. Spun up the new version of “Putin’s personnel policy,” is as speculative as the previous one.

The resignation of Sergei Ivanov as head of the presidential administration led to the crisis of the liberal putinomania. Advocated for many years, the explanation of “how ruled by Putin” does not work. Therefore, spins a new theory began an entirely different phase.

“For Putin, more importantly, how to respond to facing Russia challenges – not with whom he would do it”

Supposedly, in the last year of Vladimir Putin has changed the very principle of organization of power. It was said that he relied on friends, colleagues, and now change them on the slave-executors. Almost a decade and a half before the main line of information and propaganda attacks on Putin were built on a simple, highly polished steel pattern: he builds the “capitalism of friends”. In this case, “Putin’s guard no stranger in power will not allow, neither of which update the “elite” cannot be and speeches, the country is dying, everything is bad.

In General, this concept was the basis for the understanding of not only liberals, but also the West. Because it is based on that of the United States in response to the Crimea took personal sanctions against a number of officials and businessmen. Let, say, the “elite” will rise up against the President. When this did not happen, they began to talk not about the inaccuracy of the concept, but the fear – intimidated all Putin, so the plan did not work. And now this favorite enemies Putin’s mantra about “Putin’s friends” is dying before our eyes, and urgently turn to a new, equally “deep.”

What killed her? Care Ivanov happened almost exactly a year after the unexpected resignation of Vladimir Yakunin, head of Russian Railways. And within four months before the departure of Sergei Ivanov high positions did several influential officials of Putin’s first appeal: the head of the FSKN Viktor Ivanov, the head of the FMS Konstantin Romodanovsky, the head of the FCS Andrei Belyaninov, head of Federal security service Yevgeny Murov. Simultaneously, the spring of this years governors were appointed three people from the presidential security Service officers at the age of forty years, already has experience in the various authorities.

The appointment of Anton Vaino head of the presidential administration had completed the impact on the consciousness of the Kremlinologists.

Any concept that explains the secret springs, the unit of power and the principles of personnel policy, is both a work of intelligence, and element of the propaganda war. In the Soviet years by Western Kremlinologists were spent great efforts to explain the actions of the Soviet leadership through vnutrikitayskoy fight. And it should be noted that in the Stalin and Brezhnev era Sovietologists in most cases, wrote complete nonsense. Not because they ordered it, the CIA. But because, first, they almost had no real information about what was happening in the Politburo, and second, because their very idea of the motives behind the actions of Soviet managers had little to do with reality.

“Experts” estimated Soviet leaders as people who are constantly concerned with the struggle for power and survival – although in reality, the same Brezhnev period, these motifs were not included in the main. The same thing is happening with the assessments of the current situation in Putin’s environment, only now the authors of “explanation” are not the Western and Russian experts and analysts. Worked in the past at medium levels of power or even now having to it a relationship – but is it about the same as the blind from the famous fable about the elephant. Among the motives of Putin, and the core of his team, called everything except the main thing: strengthening the state. Although this explains all the actions of the head of state, including its approach to HR.

That Putin inherited a failing country, few can argue (except of course those liberals that were themselves a power in the 90’s and brought Russia to the brink). The fact that he managed to stop its decay, does not mean that this problem is keeping the state from breaking off in confusion – ceased to be for him the main. It may be recalled that just five years ago, in the fall of 2011, explaining his decision to run again for President, Putin said that we are all kept on a live thread. And this was not a mongering and exaggeration. The collapse of the USSR has led not only to the rupture of a living organism (Donbas and Crimea showed that the recovery processes are), but also to a breakdown of the entire way of life and socio-economic order. Which yet have not created a new, sustainable, responsive to the interests and values of the people system.

Yes, Putin has built a vertical of power, which returned to handling the country. But too much depends on the personality of the first person, of his will and purposes. From the ruler in Russia always, much depends – but his quality should not depend neither sovereignty nor territorial integrity nor the peace and order in the state. We experienced this under Gorbachev, and it is clear that for Putin the lessons of the recent past he was seen as an ordinary citizen, is extremely important.

He can’t come up with a new system, new way. It can only help the movement in the direction that seemed correct to the sustainable development of the country.

But this requires people: people who agree in the main, think about the country, not about personal enrichment, not out of fear but out of conscience. Where they could take in a situation, when the elite of favorites, parasitic and short-sighted, occupied most of the commanding heights of and did not think to give some kind of “Petersburg security officers” no real levers of governance, nor even the right to determine the direction of movement?

Only among those whom Putin knew and whom you trusted – that is, colleagues working in the KGB and St. Petersburg mayor’s office. So he formed the “new elite”, which helped him all these years to bring order to the administration and the country itself. And in General they have coped with the task. You can argue about the pace and costs, but we should not forget about the resistance that they have to overcome when moving in a given direction.

This does not mean that Putin didn’t think about the personnel policy, trapped in a circle of “true friends”. It was sensible images from the regions and from the nationally oriented part of the business, but it is clear that the “presidential range”, that is, those who can keep in sight of the Kremlin, does not exceed several thousand people. The rest is the work of others, responsible for specific areas of work or sectors of the economy. And then the “swamp” of patronage, corruption or just stupid loyalty delayed many.

By the beginning of Putin embarked on a new phase: tightening of the rules of conduct of the “elite”. Back at the Kremlin, Putin began building officials to introduce new restrictions and increase demand. Since 2012 has increased markedly and the fight against corruption, and a policy of strict separation of government and business, and coercion to get rid of dual loyalty (account abroad, etc.), and requirements of establishing a real, not imitation of contact and dialogue with society. In recent years consistently is the nationalization of the elite, and this process is far from over.

It is clear that it causes strong resistance in the “elite” – not only from those who continue to confuse the public pocket but also those who simply cannot work any other way. In the most serious need of updating regional elites, the Federal part of the nomenclature will change. Officials zabronzovel, has acquired a huge number of “his people” have informal obligations to others, such as they deserved (without the quotes) personnel.

The system starts to slip, it requires rejuvenation, fresh blood, and it is an objective process. Especially when the Kremlin has a chance to push into the upper echelon of new, but proven and statist-minded people.

But we are not talking about knocking out the “old guard”. Someone leaves age (same Moravu already 70, and Viktor Ivanov, 66), someone really does not fit the new stage of Putin’s work. The more that the President do for 17 years very much has grown as a statesman is not a compliment, but acknowledging the obvious – and not all colleagues could keep up with him. The challenges facing the country, did not become easier. Something faded, something remained, but Russia still faces some very serious challenges. Putin is more interested in how to meet these challenges – and not what he will do. Nothing personal – responsibility first-person is that the fate of the country (with which he fully identifies, which is for him really important.

Now Putin wants to change the power so that the process of nationalization of the elite to form the backbone of the new managerial class and manage to break at different positions of those who in the future will have to take control of Russia. He grows not “their” people, and government, servants of the Fatherland, not of the clan, of the President or the elite. This is the essence of its personnel work.